Swearing as cricket's `art & part'

What is now deeply disturbing is to find cricketers (indulging in game abuse) bringing the wife into their onfield vocabulary. This is a nasty development calling upon the umpire to step in on the spot.

RAJU BHARATAN

ON the sets of Mard were a megastar and mega director. Both with perceptive insights into the game of cricket. Amitabh Bachchan bowled decent left-arm spin in his time and is, in the resonance of his speech, the Public School boy all over. Manmohan Desai took to cricket on the earthy maidans of Bombay and could be earfully eloquent in discussing the finer points of the game. Arrived the hour to shoot that Mard scene and Manmohan Desai just let himself go. It was too much for the Big B even by acknowledged Manmohan Desai standards. So that the Superstar of Superstars urged some restraint in terms of direction. Only to earn the spot Manmohan admonition: "Even you can't stop me here, Amit, this is my matrubhasha!"

So is swearing the matrubhasha of cricketers the world over. From swearing to sledging is but one Glenn McGrath step. How do you abolish sledging without banning swearing out there? Truth to tell, you could no more stop a cricketer from "swearing by" sledging than you could halt Dennis Lillee from taking on Sunil Gavaskar to this D-Day. In a full 52 years on the cricket beat, I have met only one cricketer whom I did not once hear utter a cussword. This is Vijay Merchant, the pineapple of politeness even to the peon in his office. By contrast, Vijay Merchant's implacable cricket rival, Lala Amarnath, could not carry on any discussion unless he laced the conversation with a generous sprinkling of swear-words.

Lala Amarnath, in fact, set the "tone" by which swearing is a way of life in the game.

Here you come to the nub of the problem. Umpires on the ICC Elitist Panel are today expected to act against a player opening his mouth to put his foot in pit. Yet it so happens that these umpires themselves graduated to their specialist positions employing the very language that players habitually use today. So where does the Elite Umpire make a beginning in de-sledging? He is in no moral position to cut out all sledging — unless he nips in the bud swearing itself as a cricketing art form. Eliminating all swearing from the game no umpire, however elitist, is rationally going to try to do. As sport is all about steam. And letting it off.

Take the classic case of Virender Sehwag being handed a one-Test ban by mismatch referee Mike Denness. Following that famous face-off during the November 2001 Port Elizabeth Test between Sourav's India and Shaun's South Africa. Let us be honest with ourselves, Viru Sehwag — straight out of Najafgarh — did suffix ing to the famous four-letter word in, purely instinctively, calling into question Russell Tiffin's integrity as an umpire. The very vehemence with which this happening is going to be denied should be inferred as its confirmation. But then the umpire in Russell Tiffin did not see it fit to report Viru Sehwag. Because Russell Tiffin had a complete comprehension of the fact that it was the wild-oats sowing enthusiasm of youth egging on Viru Sehwag. That the country lad, in no way, literally meant what he said. Yet Mike Denness acted on his own peculiar impulse. The outcome was an international crisis in which Jagmohan Dalmiya had to insist that Virender Sehwag said nothing of the sort in running up to the umpire — "bat-pad" ball in hand.

The incident itself had a rare salutary effect on Viru Sehwag. After that one-Test ban and the international ruckus accompanying it, Viru Sehwag became the model of good behaviour on the field of play. This brought about a metamorphosis in his chunky outlook on the game. An outlook by which Viru Sehwag emerged from it all as a much cooler customer centrestage. As a cricketer delivering better for the sobering effect.

What is now deeply disturbing is to find cricketers (indulging in game abuse) bringing the wife into their onfield vocabulary. This is a nasty development calling upon the umpire to step in on the spot. With the players' wives, today, frequently on tour with them, this caddish practice could lead to untold complication off the field too. Let any abuse hurled be man to man. Without bringing a player's private life into public question. It is no argument to contend that Glenn McGrath merely got as good as he gave. We could admire Ramnaresh Sarwan for standing up to the white man. Without condoning the wife-dragging words he used to get even. That way, Vijay Manjrekar was perhaps the first Indian to let the dominant white know in "chaste English," where the fellow got off on the field of play. But even Vijay never got so browned off as to indulge in personalised innuendo.

Remember how outraged we felt when Michael Slater got at Rahul Dravid — the symbol of dignity, for us, in Cricket, Ugly Cricket? Yet Michael Slater remains a great guy for all the momentary loss of poise arising from a troubled marriage. Never overlook how our Venkatesh Prasad had only to approach Michael Slater not to rat on him for this sporty Aussie to oblige. That umpire David Shepherd still took a dim view of Venky's lanky outburst is a different pair of cricket shoes altogether. I have always sensed Venky as up to some mischief behind the umpire's back. No matter how broad the back of David Shepherd, it has a ready feel for one venturing to take the umpire for a Mysore elephant ride.

But matters took a serious turn when our own Madhav Gothoskar was standing in his first international match — the fourth Test between Ajit Wadekar's India and Tony Lewis's England (at Kanpur's Green Park, end-January 1973) with us leading 2-1 in the series. As Gothoskar turned down an appeal for lbw by Geoff Arnold, the bowler (on the way back to his run-up) came up with a "**** you!" expletive. Gothoskar admirably took it in his stride, initially merely urging Geoff Arnold to mind his language. Whereupon Geoff Arnold added fuel to fire by enlarging it to: "**** your country!" Gothoskar was having none of this even if he was standing in his maiden Test. He immediately walked up to England captain Tony Lewis to tell him: "Look here, I let it go when he used the four-letter word against me, but now he's bringing my country into it. That I do not take lightly." Sensing repercussions, Tony Lewis immediately took up the matter with Geoff Arnold for things to be brought under instant control.

My point is this — that the umpire has now to be viewed to act fast, on TV, and that in itself is a dicey proposition. The present set of elite umpires, having been fair-level players themselves, are not always clear where to draw the sledging line. Focus on a wonderful human being like Darryl Harper functioning as the elite umpire. Both the South Africans and the Sri Lankans must have acted in an extremely provocative manner for such a cheery soul as Darryl Harper to have lost his cool and exploded thus: "Now that's an official warning, do you get me?"

The Australian umpire is often a character. Picture Bill Alley who toured India at the turn of the half-century with the Commonwealth team and took, as a strokeful left-hander, loads of runs off our bowling. Upon finishing with County Cricket in England, Aussie Bill Alley turned his attention to umpiring. It was Bill Alley standing and Freddie Trueman bowling. Following the rejection of an lbw appeal, there was a stream of abuse from Fiery Freddie. Unruffled, umpire Bill Alley just let Our Man Freddie have it back in his own lingo. So imaginatively inventive was Bill Alley in the phrases he here coined that even Freddie Trueman (considered the Sultan of Swearing) had to back down.

Umpiring is a thankless job of work that calls for no end of humour. Rewind to the November 1981 first Test between Sunil Gavaskar's India and Keith Fletcher's England at Bombay's Wankhede Stadium. One of the umpires in this Test was Swaroop Kishen — as the rotund David Shepherd's Indian double. As an lbw appeal by Graham Dilley against Kapil Dev (ultimately 38) rent the Wankhede air, Swaroop Kishen stood as unmoved as the Sphinx. Seeing the stoutest umpire in the world so indifferent, Graham Dilley sought to know why Kapil Dev was not out, lbw. "Because I could see all three stumps!" was Swaroop Kishen's telling counter.

The venue shifts to Bangalore's Chinnaswamy Stadium, it is the September 1979 second Test between Sunil Gavaskar's India and Kim Hughes' Australia. As Dilip Doshi bowls to Allan Border (set to score 44), India's left-arm successor to Bishan Singh Bedi is no-balled by umpire K.B. Ramaswami. Dilip Doshi seeks to know where he has overstepped and K.B. Ramaswami tells him how. But you know how persistent Dilip Doshi could be! He overreaches himself yet again and is no-balled anew. Dilip Doshi wants to know, all over again, where he put a foot wrong. K.B. Ramaswami explains things to him yet again. Along comes a third no-ball by Dilip Doshi. Alongside comes the demand to know the reason why. This is where umpire K.B. Ramaswami takes matters in hand in true Chennai style. "I owe you no explanation now or ever, you just bowl according to the rules!" he lets Dilip Doshi unmistakably know.

My idea in retailing all this is to draw pointed attention to how things need not become unpleasant on the field if umpires are quietly conscious of where and when to exercise their powers and put their supervising stamp on the game. Look at S. Venkatraghavan, so befittingly bestowed with the Padma Shri recently. "Padma Shriman" Venkat has had his share of "getbacks" as one of the game's top three umpires to this day. But do you remember Venkat's ever being pushed around by any player? Actually, when Venkat took up the task, I considered him to be something of a misfit in the white-coated role. For I had all along known Venkat (as a player) to be somewhat tart of tongue. But Venkat turned this very trait into his strong point as an umpire. Clearly Venkat had matured with the years to now give a player a piece of his acute mind only when he saw that there was no other way of reining in the field offender.

If Venkat has stayed the litmus-Test umpiring course so well, it is because he has blended near total efficiency with near total authority. Yet this is the most daunting phase in Venkat's career as an umpire. To view him bend to the task (at square-leg) — during the Edgbaston Test between South Africa and England — was to recognise how much this game took out of an elite umpire. One mistake and you are in the idiot box as a "witness". There to be cross-examined by action replay after action replay. It is a close-up job at which the hard-swearing Bishan Singh Bedi failed in the viva-voce stage itself. It is for Bishan now to tell us, as one sworn to always playing fair, how to deal with the sledging that goes on in the middle. If only sledging could be more original! As it was when Steve Waugh let Herschelle Gibbs know, in a creative Aussie aside for a change, "Son, that's the World Cup you just dropped!"